It’s when the hot water gets shut down that people start complaining to Colonel Sheppard and Lorne by default.

It’s technically day three of the Respect for the Scientist strike, but so far the only thing that’s been done is a bunch of picket signs Lorne thinks were made by either Simpson or Miko. The flowers kind of give it away.

They’ve been carrying them around everywhere the go, lounging mostly and Lorne has to wonder how Rodney’s standing it. How they even talked Rodney into doing it when Rodney’s life is all work, work, work with the occasional stop for food and sex.

But there Rodney sits, picket sign in his fingers and he’s laughing at something Radek had said, at least Lorne thinks.

Sheppard’s solution had been simple. Apologize. Not Lorne, but the new Marines stupid enough to bad mouth the scientists as unnecessary. That this should be a military operation, but the SGC had been a push over to the IOA and they had said it in an area where the scientists could hear.

It hadn’t taken Dr. Derco, one of the new botanists, a long time to spread the word and soon all the scientist knew about the new Marine’s bad mouthing. Lorne hadn’t thought it would amount to anything. Would have bet an entire years pay that Rodney would have gone into a long rant about how the Marines were just grunts who were too stupid to realize the contribution the scientists made.

That hadn’t happen though.

Someone mentioned strike and Lorne had the distinct pleasure of being there when Rodney’s face went contemplative and he hummed. Lorne had been with Rodney long enough to know what that meant.

So the next day when he woke up, arms wrapped tightly around Rodney and the alarm clock hadn’t gone off yet he had asked Rodney why.

“Didn’t you know. We’re going on strike.” Rodney had said sleepily.

“You’re serious.” Lorne had said back.

“Of course. I think it seems like an excellent idea.”

“Yes, and what will Dr. Weir think?”

Rodney had sighed, that long suffering, sometimes I don’t know why I sleep with you because you’re being incredibly stupid sigh.

“With the Wraith threat down and the extra ZedPM, I don’t think Elizabeth will much mind. In fact, if I know her, she’ll think it’s pretty funny.”

“You’re serious about this.”

“Of course. Apparently my snarking isn’t getting to them. I swear the Marines seem to be getting more thick headed with every batch they send. This will send the message.”

“You’re not going to do anything too drastic, are you?”

“Well, Atlantis may be running much more efficiently lately, but things still need to get fixed. Things still need to be done everyday to get the comforts those grunts are so used too.”

“So you’re not going to blow them up?”

“Please, they’re useful canon fodder for off world missions.”

Lorne knows he doesn’t really mean that. Can’t really mean that when he’s friends with Cadman and he and Stackhouse still take jumper lessons every once in awhile. Rodney’s fine with the older people, the people that have been on Atlantis for as long as he has and Lorne knows that it might be those people alone that are exempt.

It starts off with the scientists just lazing about and the Marines acting like they’re right and they are undoubtedly the shit and Lorne wants to smack them because they just don’t know and he sees Sheppard wince whenever he hears the last wise crack because Sheppard knows.

But then the hot water turns off and all hell breaks loose.

The complaints come in drones and Sheppard has taken to hiding in his office because no one would think to look for him there. Doctor Weir is the next one they go to and she simply smiles and shakes her head.

“Perhaps you should have appreciated the small things in life more.” She had said.

This gave birth to tons of conspiracy theories that pegged Doctor Weir’s Ph.D. in something other than political science and Lorne just wants to laugh at that.

But since Sheppard’s hiding, coward that he is, Lorne, being his second in command, has to take the brunt of the complaints. And he is not met with sympathizers. If anything they treat him worse than the scientist and he’s already had to pull rank four times and the line for KP duty is growing exponentially.

“Rodney.” Lorne says.

Rodney looks up at him, bright smile on his face and Lorne has to smile back at him for half a second.

“Did they send you?” He asks.

“Yes, and you have no idea how pissed off they are. At me in general. Apparently they’re mad at the fact that I have hot water and they don’t.” Lorne says taking the seat next to Rodney.

“The perks of sleeping with a genius.”

“You didn’t deliberately sabotage the hot water, did you?”

“Do you really want to know?” Rodney asks.

Lorne has a feeling that he so doesn’t want to know, but thinks it’d be better if he did.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, I didn’t do anything. It’s just that the systems that maintain need to be watched very carefully for an anomalous data. Something about it needing a higher function of power than even two ZedPMs can maintain without totally draining us. You’d think the Ancients could find a better way of showering.” Rodney says thoughtfully.

“So this is just the spoils of strike?”

“Yup.”

“But I took a shower this morning. We took a shower this morning and the water was just fine.”

“Well I didn’t say that we weren’t monitoring all the systems. We’re monitoring all the systems that give hot water to the scientists quarters, and the medical staff because can you imagine Carson without hot water.” Rodney says and that shudder is so not fake.

Lorne knows from experience how bitchy Doctor Beckett gets without a nice, long shower with burning hot water and he’d die happy never having to see it again.

“And I’m guessing not all the military personnel is taking a cold shower?”

“Cadman would bitch as would Sheppard and there are few that we like, but they’re all shuffled off to the older sections of the city that just happen to be very close to the areas designated to the scientists. It’s a brilliant plan really.”

“They’re not mad enough to apologize.” Lorne says.

“Well what would be the fun in that?” Rodney asks, manic smile on his face and Lorne just has to laugh at his utter giddiness.

He’s trying for a leer, but Rodney’s not really good at overtly sexual gestures and it comes out looking like a bit of a glare.

Lorne thinks maybe he should have his head examined because he actually thinks it’s hot.

“Sounds like a plan.”

He guesses he’ll leave the head examination for later. There’s hot water showers to be had after all.

~*~

Day ten hits and almost all of the transporters are offline.

This means walking, long distances because Atlantis may be beautiful, but she’s a freaking huge city and just getting from one place to another is a chore.

The scientists don’t seem to mind though. After all most of them are staying in their rooms, the occasional trip to the mess hall we’re they’ll point and laugh at the exhausted looking Marines.

They still don’t give in and Rodney shows Lorne a cool way to get around the city fast without the transporters. Lorne suspects that he’s not the only one that’s been told, but he knows for a fact that he’s the only one that makes out with Rodney in the secret passageways.

When day seventeen hits, lights start turning on around the city for no apparent reason, all of them in the new military personnel quarters.

“I’m not doing it on purpose.” Rodney says.

Colonel Sheppard cocks an eyebrow, but just grabs a piece of bacon and chews on it thoughtfully.

“Don’t you think you may be taking this strike a little too far, Rodney?” Doctor Beckett asks.

Lorne thinks it’s when the underground market dries up at around day twenty-two that the Marines finally start to crack.

He hadn’t even known they’d been around long enough to find out about the underground market, but apparently they have and when it’s cut off, Zelenka’s homemade alcohol and Miko’s extra special chocolate fudge with chocolate chips is gone.

And the medical staff seems to have jumped on the bandwagon. Beckett’s drawing more blood than necessary and the condoms have seemed to disappear as well as anything else medical that’s non essential.

“They’ll be apologizing any minute now.” Rodney predicts one night while they’re watching one of the latest DVDs brought in by the Daedelus.

“I’m surprised they lasted this long.” Lorne says cuddling close.

“They’re idiots.” Rodney says back.

“That they are.”

Because the jumpers have been grounded, all seem to have glitches and are in desperate need of repairs. The mess food storage is down for some odd reason. The lights flicker and loud noises erupt from nowhere in the middle of the night.

The transporters are still down and not only is there no hot water, there’s practically no water. Things spark and hiss and make strange noises and all of the new Marines looks utterly frazzled.

So it’s no surprise to Lorne that they come to the mess hall, all forty or so of them, maniac expressions on their faces. He’s sitting with Rodney eating lunch and finishing his reports, Rodney with his picket sign still in hand and one speaks up.

“Um… sir?”

Lorne looks up.

“Yes, Corporal.”

“Sir, we’d like to apologize now.” He says.

“Don’t apologize to me.” Lorne huffs and goes back to his papers.

He thinks that they already tried this with Sheppard who probably had just laughed right in their faces and he’s not about to get in bad with the scientists.

The head one gives him blowjobs and they have spectacular sex and he doesn’t even complain when Lorne’s steals a bar of chocolate.

“Um… Dr. McKay?” The same guy says.

“Yes.” Rodney says a bit distractedly.

“Um… we’d like to apologize now.” The guy says.

Rodney looks over at him and smiles that same evil genius smile that makes Lorne want to jump him.

“Excellent.”

~*~

“That was quite humiliating.” Lorne says.

The new Marines all had to line up, in the gate room with all the scientists crowding around on the stairs and balconies with gleaming eyes and Lorne had been reminded of revenge of the nerds.

They’d had to say they were sorry and that they wouldn’t be so stupid ever again and that the scientists were always right and they should never, ever question that, in unisons because Rodney gets a huge kick out of abusing the power of the military.

Lorne finds it just a little weird that Rodney had accepted their apology hurriedly and then had dragged Lorne off for some of the best sex they’ve ever had. Not that he’s ever going to complain.

“I know. I didn’t even right it. Radek did.” Rodney says.

The smile hasn’t left his face and Lorne knows he’s replaying it over and over again in his brain.

Plus a few others like Rodney/Carson, Shawn/Lassiter, Matt/Mohinder, Mohinder/Sylar, Peter/Nathan and Jack/Ianto

Me In a Nutshell

I write fan fiction (have for awhile) and I read fan fiction (mostly on lj). Really, that's it. I'm a very boring person. This journal is for the fiction, mostly, but occassionally I'll go on a rant about what bugs me with the world (which is almost everything)